Twenty

by Debra Landwehr Engle

  “Hello?” I said, leaning against the washer.

  “Hi, Meg,” he said. “Am I catching you at a good time?”

  “You are,” I said. “You’re saving me from folding clothes.”

  “Good,” he said. “Glad I can help.” His voice sounded warm as ever, but I heard noise in the background.

  “Are you calling from your conference?” I asked.

  “Yep, we’re in between sessions, so I thought I’d see if I could catch you. How was your trip?”

  “Great,” I said. “Everybody’s doing fine. Holly and Phil said to tell you hi.”

  “Maybe you can tell me all about it when we get together,” he said. “How about Lulu’s for lunch tomorrow?”

  I paused, remembering all the times we went to Lulu’s for hamburgers when we first got married and couldn’t afford anything fancier. That was fine with me. Some of our most romantic moments happened in the least fancy places: the hardware store, getting groceries, painting the front porch.

  I remember one moment in the plumbing section at Miller’s Hardware when we were teasing each other. I looked at him, and he seemed so strong and capable, and I trusted him so much, that I felt my soul expand beyond my body with happiness. Just pure contentment. That would happen every once in a while, and I always took it as a gift, even if I just felt it for a second. Some people, I figured, never feel it at all.

  “Sounds good, Joe,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

  * * *

  I’m starting to think of favorite memories now, my own Top 40 Moments of Life. Tonight, when I saw the hazy sky just before sunset—at that magic moment when everything is in suspended animation—I remembered the evening when Rose and I sat at the back of the yard in the fairy circle of cottonwood trees. We watched our neighbors’ horses run wild, back and forth in the pasture, ghostlike, kicking up dust and surrounding themselves with halos of sunshine and dirt as they snorted and stomped.

  Rose sat quietly, mesmerized by their power. Then she took my hand and whispered, “Mommy, are they real?” At that moment, I couldn’t say for sure.

  My heart aches when I think about this, not just because I miss Rose, but because I miss myself. Where was I in all those moments, and why did I think they weren’t enough?

  I think about that sound—the sound of the clattering dishes—that marked the moment of “I’m done.” Today I stopped by Rosa’s for a late lunch, and I listened to all the chatter around me. This time it sounded like the humming of life, like comforting energy. So what is it? Why did I loathe this sound three weeks ago and decide it signaled the end of my life, while today I wanted to sit in it and breathe it in like oxygen?

  I’m still anxious about the process of death—will I experience any pain? Will I suffer? But I’m no longer fearful of life. I suppose because I know I may not be here much longer, and nothing can touch me. I have become like walking Teflon. Before, death represented the ultimate fear. But with that Big One marked off the list, everything else seems like a cartoon-character villain. Disappointing someone? Piece of cake. Missing a deadline? Not a problem. Not that I want to be irresponsible or insensitive, even now. In fact, it’s the opposite. I can see what I did to myself with all those pressures and fears, and I want to say to everyone I meet, “Let yourself off the hook. Turn off the murder investigation shows and the political hotheads and reality TV and go take a walk and look at the sky. Trust that you’ll be okay, because you will.”

  It’s like the e-mail that keeps circulating on the Internet—the one about how, at the end of your life, you won’t care if you kept your house spotless. Instead, you’ll care whether you went to your kids’ soccer games and said, “I love you” every day. Turns out, that e-mail is right, but it’s so much more than that. I guess that’s why those things sometimes seem so simple. Because to try to put in words how profound they are would be impossible. It’s like trying to describe a Minnesota lake when the glow of the moon turns the water to gold. You just can’t imagine how beautiful it is until you’re there.

  * * *

  I’ve been lying awake at night thinking about where I might be in a few days. If the pearls are still potent, what will the end of this life mean? What will the transition be like? Where will I be?

  When Rose died, I longed to see or understand where she was. I suppose it’s the maternal instinct. You want to know where your child is and that she’s okay. And even though I wanted to believe that the arms of a greater being held her safe—safer than she could ever be here on Earth—I still wanted to see her, to know what existence looked like for her.

  So I lay down and closed my eyes and asked for vision, to be given the gift of knowing where she is. I saw white buildings, magnificent white buildings with columns and Greek statues. Waterfalls and fountains and gardens. I didn’t see a street paved with gold or a choir of angels with harps. But I knew that exquisite beauty surrounded her.

  I saw her there sitting on the steps of one of those buildings, smiling at me, and I had the sense that she’s okay and happy. And that the thing she wants most for me is to be happy, too. I wish I knew how. I really do. I don’t want to disappoint her. I don’t know what she might think of my taking the pearls. I guess I may find out soon. There is a part of me that worries I may end up in a different place since I’ve taken the path of accelerated decline. But all I can do is hope that my motives will be taken into account: that all I want is to be with Mama and my little girl again.

  * * *

  I’ve been getting e-mails and Facebook messages from some of the people who received the recycled Christmas cards I sent a few days ago. My favorite came from Ardis Fletcher, a nurse who took care of Rose in the hospital after the accident.

  I saw on Facebook that she’s still at the hospital, but no longer in the pediatric ICU. Now she’s the head of nursing for the pediatric oncology unit. She’s a big, no-nonsense, nurturing kind of soul who never kowtowed to the doctors, never patronized us, and made us feel like Rose was her only patient. She was part nurse, part chaplain, part shaman. Exactly the kind of person you need in your life in a time of trauma. She’d served in the military, so she knew trauma from all sides.

  She knew that healing is 10 percent physical and 90 percent everything else. I always felt that she knew from the beginning Rose wasn’t going to make it. She gave Rose every chance she could, but she also helped start the healing process for us. We were every bit as much her patients as Rose.

  Dear Meg, she wrote. You made my day with the Christmas card. I’d forgotten all about sending that card to you and your family so many years ago.

  I’m not supposed to have favorite patients, of course, just like a mom isn’t supposed to favor any of her kids. But you and Rose and your family left a deep impression on me. I remember Rose telling me that she worried about her horse, and how she didn’t want him to feel bad. That kind of empathy is the reason I love working with little ones. I learn so much from them every day.

  Thank you for being part of my family. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying Christmas in August!

  As I had with Holly and the trip to Seattle, I knew all of a sudden I needed to go see her. That’s one of the things that’s changing. Before, I would have put it on my to-do list, and I might have gotten around to it months from now. Today, when I get a nudge, I act.

  I took a chance and drove the forty-five minutes to the hospital, hoping I could see Ardis for just a minute. If not, I had flowers for her—a small bouquet since I had to search the garden for flowers that looked good enough to cut. I had another card, too, and a donation to the hospital that I wanted to deliver into her hands.

  I saw her right away, by the nurses’ station. She hasn’t changed much. She still carries herself with that regal, in-charge bearing, but manages to befriend everyone around her.

  I was surprised that she knew me right away. “Meg!” she said, putting down a chart and coming to swallow me and the bouquet of flowers in those big arms of hers. “You came! How
did you know I wanted to say thank you for the Christmas card in person?”

  I smiled and felt the familiarity of her hug, like sitting in the crook of a wise old tree. How did I know?

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” she said. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” I said. “I wanted to bring you these.” I handed the flowers to her.

  “What?” She held the vase out in front of her like the Olympic flame. “How thoughtful. Are these from your garden?”

  “Yes,” I said, shocked by her memory. “How could you possibly remember that I garden?”

  “Are you kidding?” she said, waving me into her office. “You and your mom knew more about gardens than anyone I’ve ever met.

  “Here, sit down,” she said, then cleared a spot on her desk for the bouquet.

  “I remember all the flowers in Rose’s room,” she said. “I didn’t know the names of half of them, but you and your mom were like encyclopedias. What they were, what kind of growing conditions they needed, when they bloomed. How is your mom, by the way?”

  I rearranged myself in the chair. “She passed away five years ago,” I said.

  Ardis leaned forward and murmured, “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

  “She had dementia and was declining,” I said, “and then she took a fall. She died not long after that. But she died at home. I was able to be with her even at the very end.”

  “My, my,” Ardis said, her voice lower and more resonant. “You’ve really been through it, haven’t you?” Her sympathy came over me like a wave and filled every pore, like being comforted by your mother when you’re a child. My tears took me by surprise.

  “She was a great woman. I only knew her those couple of days you all were here, but I could see what an elegant and gracious person she was. You must miss her terribly. Her and Rose. Are you doing okay? Getting along okay without them? You never stop missing them, do you?”

  “It’s been hard,” I said. “But I’m getting along.”

  She handed me a box of tissues. “I get it,” she said. “Grief never really goes away. And sometimes it sneaks up on you when you think you’ve got it all under control.”

  I felt embarrassed. This wasn’t why I’d come to see her. But I sat silent for a moment, unable to talk.

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” I said finally, turning the tissue over and over in my hands. “You did more for us in those couple of days than you’ll ever know.”

  “It was an honor to be with you and your family,” she said. “I see a lot of heartbreaking situations in my job, and the saddest ones are when there’s no closeness, when people have walled off the love. That’s one of the reasons I remember you and your family so well. You were all so tender with each other. I don’t see that every day.”

  All of a sudden, I felt as if I shared her mind, remembering the same scene she was picturing from sixteen years ago.

  Joe and I sat in the ICU waiting room. Rose was asleep, and Mama had gone to the cafeteria to get something to eat. I was curled up in the crook of Joe’s arm, and he was stroking my hair. Still connected. Before we shattered apart. Ardis walked into the waiting room to give us an update on Rose’s medication, and I saw her looking at us for a moment before she spoke, as if she didn’t want to interrupt the intimacy of the moment.

  I came back to my own mind again, looking at Ardis across the desk, as though we both exited the memory at the same time. I saw her glancing at my naked ring finger. She didn’t say anything.

  “Well, I don’t want to keep you,” I said, suddenly eager to leave. “I just wanted to stop by and give you the flowers and this.” I pulled the envelope with the check from my purse and laid it on her desk next to the flowers. “It’s for the hospital, but I wanted to deliver it to you.”

  I stood up, not wanting to remember anything else that might turn me inside out from weeping. She stood, too, and came around the desk to give me another hug.

  “Thank you for coming, Meg,” she said, sensitive to my vulnerability. “You take care of yourself, okay?”

  “I will,” I said. “Thank you, Ardis.”

  “Hope to see you again sometime soon,” she said. I looked at her one last time before I left her office, realizing my grief had not subsided one bit since I’d seen her sixteen years before.

  Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to see Joe.

  DAY FIFTEEN

  Making amends always makes me think of amending soil in a garden. You start with depleted soil that’s lost all its nutrients. It can’t feed the plants, can’t help hydrate roots, is devoid of life-giving organisms and earthworms. And so you amend it with compost. You dig in and add black, rich compost to the soil. You make it nutritive again. Sustaining. Nourishing.

  Sometimes I think people look at making amends as asking for forgiveness. I guess it can be that, too. But I’ve always thought of mending relationships as adding some good compost and seeing them come back to life again.

  Maybe, after today, that’s possible with Joe.

  I hadn’t been to Lulu’s for years, and it hadn’t changed. Same slick red vinyl booths, same big retro clock over the soda fountain. I got there a few minutes before noon, wanting to be the first to arrive. I hadn’t seen Joe since Mama’s funeral.

  I wanted to see him walking along the street and get a glimpse of him so I could set my expression straight before he walked in and saw what I was feeling. And I did. I saw him crossing the street and walking in the door. He hadn’t changed much. Same sandy brown hair, although it’s a little thinner on top. Same blue eyes. Same scar on one cheek from a fight with one of his brothers when he was twelve years old.

  I wasn’t prepared for how I felt when I saw him. Maybe knowing this could be the last time opened up a door in me that I’d shut a long time ago.

  When he saw me, he waved, and his whole face seemed to smile. He came over to the booth and instead of sliding into his seat, he took my hands, pulled me up, and hugged me.

  “It’s so good to see you, Meg,” he said. “You look younger than ever.” Why did people keep saying that?

  “You look good, too,” I said as he sat down and pushed the catsup and mustard rack over to the side of the table, out of our way.

  “Thank you for coming to meet me,” he said. “This must be a hard time for you.”

  For a moment I wondered if he somehow knew about the pearls. We’d always had a special connection. But there was no way he could know.

  “It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since your mom left us,” he said. Oh yes, Mama’s death.

  I fidgeted with the paper place mat on the table. “I’m getting along okay,” I said. “How about you? How’s the conference going?”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad we could get together. It’s been too long, and I thought it might be a comfort to you, seeing an old familiar face about now.”

  Again, it seemed he knew more than he said.

  “Did you move?” I asked. “I noticed you had a new return address on the card you sent.” I tried to pretend I didn’t know, that Holly and Phil hadn’t told me about his divorce.

  He looked down at the table. “Well,” he said. “There have been some changes in my life. Carol and I aren’t together anymore.”

  I tried not to show that I already knew. “What happened?” I asked. “Well, not that it’s any of my business.”

  “We’d been having problems for a while,” he said. He rubbed his ring finger. “It always seemed as if our relationship was missing something, and we finally agreed that it just wasn’t working.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, partly meaning it.

  “We’re still friends,” he said. “I still get together with the girls.... I think it helps them to have a second dad in their lives.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “You were always a terrific dad.”

  He smiled and looked at me. “Thank you,” he said.

  The waitress came and took
our order.

  “So, tell me what you’ve been up to,” he said. I’d been rehearsing how I would answer this question. I had a cheerful stock response for acquaintances I ran into. But not for Joe.

  “Oh, the same old thing. Trying to survive the heat, like everybody.”

  “Are the plants surviving?”

  “Barely,” I said. “I water them four times a day, and they still look stressed. They need what I can’t give them.” I didn’t say I felt the same way.

  “How are things at Nancy’s?”

  “Slow,” I said. “I’m taking a couple of weeks off. I figured it would help Nancy if she didn’t have to pay me, and the break is giving me a chance to catch up on a few things.” A part of me wanted to tell him what I’d done, blurt out the whole story, but I pretended to read the menu instead.

  “Anything that needs fixing?” he said. “I’ll be around for a few days. I’d be happy to come out and help you if you need something. It would be great to spend some time at the old place again.”

  My stomach turned. The thought of him back at the acreage, back at the same place where we found Rose in the pasture with Romeo pawing the ground, with all those memories, made me want to throw up and gave me a strange sense of elation at the same time.

  “Really, Meg,” he said, “if you need anything at all, I’d like to help.”

  I felt the familiarity of his offer. Genuine, no hidden agenda. The guy I could always count on, being steadfast once again.

  “I’ll give it some thought,” I said. “You know how things are at the farm. There’s always something that needs repair.”

  * * *

  When we walked out of the diner and into the heat, it felt as if we were walking into a furnace. Without any breeze, the heat hung over the street, completely still. Joe gave me a proper hug.

  “I’ll call you tonight and see if you need me the next couple of days,” he said. “I’ll be free tomorrow after five.... I could bring supper out if you like.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Joe,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.” And then he was gone.